The six-tatami mat room leads to Roka’s dark wood bungalow cradled in a tangle of bamboo grove. The narrow engawa creaks as I enter a shoji door. A woodblock calligraphy in kanji offers a greeting: Farm when it’s sunny. Read when it rains. I follow Footprints in the Snow to a carved rock sitting in a forest of green ginkgo.

a sparrow’s shadow

rests on my itchy eyelids

glimmer of koi fish

I eat a bowl of tororo soba before embarking on a journey in the fluorescent labyrinth of Sunshine City, where people mirror wants in a kaleidoscope. I exit in the suburban dimness of Zōshigaya and locate grave one-fourteen-one-three to recite a solemn dream for the spirit of Soseki. Somewhere near a sakura tree, Sensei’s friend, is also laid to rest.

a lady wearing

a pink hat lights incense sticks

eulogy in smoke

I walk along a railroad track for the footbridge where Osamu once stood, leaning against a railing, gazing at the sunrise or sunset. It’s hard to tell when things are in black and white. I climb up the unsteady structure. The massive sun renders the sky scarlet, blurring the tracks that stretch to the horizon, as trains slither like snakes beneath my feet.

nascent autumnal

grass on Tamagawa’s berm

suicide on replay

after a quarrel

borderline between—

sanity & insanity

Buddha & Bukowski

inertia & movement

of cheeks & nose

pricked ingrown

& blistered toes

Jack & Goose

gun & noose

peace & destruction

pills & sessions

peeled skin that feels not

perhaps too much

whiteness & hue

canvas & view

K & I

sea & sky

dream & life

lurking in limbo

—what & what?

Marc Perez is an immigrant-settler on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Wauthuth First Nations. His creative prose have appeared in Ricepaper Magazine and PRISM international 56.3. His poems and short story are forthcoming in TAYO Literary Magazine, Issue 8.

Featured Audio

Check out our latest podcast on migration. We call it Asians Elsewhere. This episode looks at a China to Japan story with our friend John Ogawa. For the full post with footnotes, click HERE.

LiterASIAN Festival 2018

Eleven authors will be attending LiterASIAN 2018. An eclectic blend of emerging and established writers, each individual brings their own style and voice to speak to the theme of Journey to the West: Writing Across the Pacific.

What We’re Reading

Looking to curl up with a good book? 'CURRENTS: A Ricepaper Anthology' is out now! Read the best from Ricepaper's new and upcoming writers, who tackle the pressing--and ever more relevant--question of what it means to be Asian Canadian.